MPEG (Moving Picture Experts Group Video)
MPEG is a family of video and audio compression standards. The .mpeg extension typically refers to MPEG-1 or MPEG-2 video, which were foundational for VCDs, DVDs, and broadcast television. While superseded by H.264 for most uses, MPEG-2 remains the standard for broadcast TV.
MIME Type
video/mpeg
Type
Binary
Compression
Lossless
Advantages
- + Established standard for broadcast television and DVDs
- + Hardware decoding support in every DVD/Blu-ray player
- + Well-defined transport stream for reliable broadcast delivery
Disadvantages
- − Poor compression efficiency compared to modern codecs
- − Large file sizes for equivalent quality vs H.264
- − Not suitable for web streaming or mobile delivery
When to Use .MPEG
Use MPEG-2 for DVD authoring and broadcast compliance; for all other purposes use MP4 with H.264 or H.265.
Technical Details
MPEG-1/2 uses a program stream (PS) or transport stream (TS) container with DCT-based video compression. I-frames, P-frames, and B-frames provide temporal compression through motion prediction.
History
The MPEG-1 standard was published in 1993, enabling Video CDs. MPEG-2 followed in 1995 and became the standard for DVDs and digital broadcast. The MPEG group continues developing standards (MPEG-4, HEVC, VVC).